Hexes
by SomewhereApart
Summary: While experimenting with ways to defeat her sister during the Missing Year, Regina accidentally performs a hex that has dangerous consequences. For OQ Angst Fest, Friday. Prompts in Notes.


_**Author's Note:** For OQ Angst Fest, Friday. Prompts: 1: Give me a chance, 45: I need help, 47: Is that blood, 49: Please don't go where I can't follow_.

* * *

It hadn't been on purpose.

Not really.

She'd been experimenting, working on ways to defeat her sister, and it's not as though she can try spells out on prisoners, or villagers, or disobedient knights anymore. And it's not that she's been trying them out on herself, per se, it's just that there are ways to test their effectiveness that lead to great personal loss, and well… who would miss her anyway?

This particular hex she'd been testing had more bite than she'd planned for, though, the price of testing the spell combining with its rather stunning effects to render her a bit… helpless.

She's too weak to heal herself. She'd thought since it was just a simple web of irritating cuts that she'd be fine. She'd just heal herself like she'd heal any other scratch or break and then take a nice long nap. But instead the slashes that had appeared on her skin were deep, criss-crossing her arms, her middle, her cheeks. Blood had begun to rush immediately, her hands shaking as she tried to bring forth her magic.

She'd managed to close the cuts just a little, had focused her magic toward the ones that sliced through vein and artery, triaging as quickly as she could as her life had begun to run sticky and red from her veins. But healing them all would have taken more energy than she'd had, and she'd known she didn't have the strength to transport herself up two flights into the castle's main hall.

She'd probably give out halfway and end up bricked into the kitchen walls as she bled out, or something equally undignified. (Not that there's anything dignified about nearly killing yourself with your own hex.)

She'd had to reserve some strength for the long climb up so she'd healed only what was critical and made peace with the idea that she was about to traumatize the castle's other residents. But there'd been no other way around it.

She's grateful that she'd worn black today, regretting a bit that she'd chosen velvet. She wasn't planning on being seen, but _was_ planning on a long day in her vault so she'd dressed comfortably, in something soft and loungey—a dress that is currently absorbing what's surely a dangerous amount of blood as it runs from cut after cut after cut and seeps into the velvet. It was heavy to begin with, and the more she bleeds, the wetter it gets, the heavier it gets. The heavier _she_ gets, each step up feeling more and more like a Herculean task.

She's sweating, hot and cold at the same time, her knees wobbly, her hands trembling. Every step is agony, pulling at her wounds, testing muscles she's no doubt damaged, and after fifty of them and then forty-two more, she's fairly certain the only thing keeping her upright is her refusal to die because she couldn't manage to climb eight more stairs.

She can manage them. She _will_ manage them. On her feet and everything.

She makes it, just barely, slumping to her knees and then to the ground, collapsing there gracelessly as soon as she's crossed the threshold into the hall and no longer has the wall along the stairs to keep her steady.

She's dizzy, her vision blacking out, sound starting to fade too, but she hears it, just barely, a cry and then the trampling of feet, and then there are hands on her, warm hands, and gentle.

She blinks hard to clear her vision and manages to make out the thief's blue eyes, alarmed, terrified as a hand presses against her shoulder, her arm, the pressure on her cuts making her grimace and grunt.

"Gods above, is this blood?" he asks, and she feels his touch on her belly, feels the soft, sodden velvet shift over her calves, his voice frantic as he demands again, "Is this all blood? My gods, what happened to you?"

"I need help," she breathes, uselessly, certain he doesn't hear her as he turns and yells for someone to get them a bloody healer.

She smirks, woozy and amused. Bloody is right, she thinks…

"Stay with me, Your Majesty," he urges, and what a time for him to remember her title. She blinks, eyes rolling back as she does, and his voice is more frantic, more frightened, fuzzy and far away as he pleads with her, "Stay with me, I beg you. Please, milady, don't go where I can't follow."

He's so nervous, so scared. He feels for her, she knows. And maybe in another life she'd have felt for him too (maybe she should stop pretending she doesn't; she may well be about to die here on the ground).

She fights through the spots until she can make out his face again and gasps, "If I die… I want to you know…"

"You're _not_ dying," he insists, "You're too stubborn for that. It's part of why I love you so dearly."

She didn't expect him to _say_ it, although she probably should. She's bleeding out in his arms (there's pressure now, everywhere, making her cuts ache and burn), it's the perfect time for him to admit he loves her.

She manages a weak smile; tugging up the corner of her mouth feels like yanking up the world at its roots. All she can see clearly is the blue of his eyes, but she focuses on it like her life depends on it and gives him a little gift to remember her by, "Me too."

"Gods save us," she hears grumbled from somewhere near her middle, opposite Robin, and her gaze slides over just enough to realize Little John is knelt over her as well. And there's someone beyond him, too. Maybe someone else, she's not sure. The pressure suddenly makes more sense, suddenly focuses itself into multiple pairs of hands, the Merry Men all (begrudgingly, no doubt) trying to stanch the bleeding before it consumes her.

It's sweet. Maybe she'll have to be a little nicer to them if she survives this.

Speaking of…

Her gaze shifts back to Robin, back to all that blue she'd very much like to be gazing into if this is where she breathes her last.

"If I.. live…" she breathes again, ignoring his insistent _You will_ , "pretend I… never said it…"

Robin scoffs (or maybe that's John), and then he's smiling at her, shaking his head and telling her, his voice fading away, " _When_ you live, you're going to give me a chance."

There's more hollering, then, far away, or maybe it just seems that way, because keeping her eyes open seems suddenly very difficult, she seems suddenly very light. Very dizzy. She hears Snow, hysterical as always (not good for the baby, Regina thinks), maybe David, maybe someone else.

But all she can see is Robin, and as her eyes slip shut on the sight of his face, she finds herself hoping that it's not the last time she sees him.

Maybe he's right. Maybe she'll give him that chance, finally.

If she makes it.


End file.
